


A Ring That Suits You

by OceanCandy (PaddlingDingo), PaddlingDingo



Series: The Spaces In Between [6]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mosaic Timeline, eliot and Charlton are friends, happy mosaic family memories, queliot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24746728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddlingDingo/pseuds/OceanCandy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaddlingDingo/pseuds/PaddlingDingo
Summary: Charlton asks about the fact that Eliot still wears his ring from Fen. In Eliot’s internal thoughts about why he still wears it and how that decision is connected to Quentin, he remembers the joy and the pain of his time in the mosaic timeline with Q, Arielle, and Teddy. His family.
Relationships: Charlton & Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: The Spaces In Between [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746043
Kudos: 22





	A Ring That Suits You

Eliot sipped at his coffee, rolling the whiskey spiked beverage around in his mouth. He’d gone back to making his own coffee, especially after realizing how bad everyone else in the house was at making it.

He’d been teaching for a week, now. A week of getting to know students, their eyes bright and full of promise, or perhaps jaded and already taught to fear what they can do. Some from families full of magic, others who didn’t know how they’d fit in. He felt that (god did he feel that), but it was still too soon to talk to them about all of it. The best he could do is try to sort them out, and help them learn their initial magical theory and first few spells the best he could.

Some showed immediate aptitude. Others, it would take longer to find where they truly fit. His first weeks at Brakebills were not so far away that he’d forgotten what that felt like.

He tapped his finger against his cup of coffee, his ring making a slight clink as he did so.

Charlton sat down across from him, and Eliot looked up. He wasn’t entirely used to Hyman-Charlton in the Physical Kids’ cottage. There was something strange about a stranger saying the same things as Charlton, and actually inhabiting the house.

He was even less used to Charlton’s shitty coffee making skills. It would take a lot for him to actually drink Charlton’s coffee. That aside, he didn’t mind having someone to talk to. The cottage seemed so empty with everyone gone, except for Todd. Who was the last person Eliot wanted to try to have a conversation with.

“Good morning,” Charlton said, almost too chipper, as he sipped at a huge glass of chocolate milk.

“Isn’t chocolate milk bad for Hyman-form?” Eliot asked, eying it.

“It might be. I just discovered this last night. I suppose I’ll find out.” Charlton shrugged, looking down at Eliot’s hands wrapped around his mug. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go for it. If it’s about me, are you sure you don’t already know?”

Charlton shook his head. “If I knew this one, it’s gone now. I think it’s buried pretty deep somewhere. I spent time in memories that didn’t have as much personal value to you. Going into just any memory didn’t feel respectful.”

“I know. I’m just looking for some way to get out of explaining this shit.” Eliot smiled sadly. Charlton probably knew a lot already, although he’d said the memories he’d had were rapidly fading. A blessing on one hand, but on the other, Charlton asked a lot of questions sometimes that were things he may have once known. He hadn’t minded Charlton in his head, not as much as he would have thought he should have. “But go ahead and ask, I can always tell you no.”

“The ring.” He shifted his eyes from Eliot’s hands to his face. “It’s your ring from Fen. Is there a reason you still wear it?”

Eliot held out the ring in front of his hand and turned his hand over, looking at it.

There was a reason. A reason that he’d pushed into a corner of his mind, but that he thought of every time he looked at the ring, too.

The sun rose beyond the trees, filling the clearing around the cottage with a soft golden light. He and Quentin had been at the cottage years at this point. They’d lost Arielle, years ago, with Eliot holding Q in his arms as the other had sobbed. Heavy, grief laden sobs.

Teddy had barely understood, then. They’d let him play, while Eliot held Quentin and ran his hand through his hair. They’d been a family; an unconventional family, but a family none the less.

Eliot wasn’t sure if he’d ever have another life like this, another family like this. Where he could love someone like Quentin, and Quentin could love him, and love Arielle. Without jealousy or fear, just love. Eliot loved Arielle in his way, too, just not as Quentin did. The four of them always piled up in bed together, giving Teddy all the love they could.

They lived, they loved, and now they’d lost.

“I’m sorry, Quentin,” Eliot murmured, feeling Q shake in his arms. Q clung to him, his hands clenched in Eliot’s shirt.

“It’s not fair that she’s gone,” Q whispered.

Eliot didn’t have the heart to tell him that life wasn’t fair, that it only brought pain. Because it also brought joy. The joy of the first time Q had lifted Teddy in his arms, his eyes wide and a huge, ridiculous smile on his face. When they’d been on Earth, Q’s smiles had been few it seemed.

The days working on the mosaic weren’t always good. Some days, they were hard as hell. One or the other of them would collapse into a frustrated heap, with Eliot taking deep gulps from his flask, or Quentin scribbling frantically on a piece of paper before putting his head in his hands.

They’d kissed at the mosaic, and later it had become more. Less so when Arielle came into the picture, but Eliot didn’t mind. He’d found that intimacy was more than just sex, it was being able to curl up with people he cared about, to be safe and accepted. Some days he’d play with Teddy so that Q and Arielle had some time alone together. Other times, Arielle did the same for Eliot and Q. An arrangement full of immense trust.

After Arielle, the dynamic changed. They snuck in moments where they could, but most days, they were exhausted splitting their time between the mosaic and Teddy.

These years of love, of frustration, of joy, of sorrow.

They watched Teddy, sweet smiling Teddy, grow up and leave them. It remained just them, the two of them.

The night Teddy set out, they laid in the bed in the cottage, as it was raining. It matched the melancholy mood that Eliot felt watching Teddy walk away, but also narrowed the world to just them. The rain hit the roof steadily, and Eliot ran his fingers through Q’s beard, smiling. Q smiled back, the lines around his mouth showing more than ever. Eliot didn’t mind it. He’d never dreamed of having this long with anyone, much less Q. He knew they were there to solve the mosaic, and he knew that it could take the rest of their lives here. But the longer they spent there, the more they started to realize that perhaps this wasn’t just about the tiles, about the mosaic. Yes, it was their mission, but he minded less and less that it took so long. He’d never had the chance to live, and just be. He’d never known this much peace, had this much space to be himself. Nothing chased them, forced them to be what they needed to be to survive. That world existed somewhere, but it was far away from this one.

Q leaned in and kissed him. “Tomorrow we have to be back at it. Tonight…”

“Tonight is for us,” Eliot affirmed, kissing him back. He felt so warm, so close, his graying hair framing his face.

They made love with the sound of the rain on the roof above them, with the wind howling through the trees. Before they fell asleep, curled up and sated, Q looked over at him and blinked a few times. “I have an idea for the mosaic. We can try it in the morning.”

That was Q, always trying to come up with a solution, even now. Eliot loved that about him. He kissed Q’s forehead and curled up against him. “In the morning,” he affirmed, pulling Q up against him. In the morning, the responsibility would be back. Tonight, their only responsibility was keeping each other warm.

During sunrise the next morning, Eliot sat up in bed and looked around, noticing that Q was already gone. No doubt to work on that mosaic idea. He looked down at his hands, wondering when they started to look so old. The ring on his left ring finger, the one from his marriage to Fen, had started to look odd on his hand. Out of place, a reminder of a life he’d long since left behind. One day, he might be back to that life. He didn’t know. But he’d never wanted that marriage or that path.

He stepped outside to find Q arranging the tiles and he sat next to him, putting his arm around his shoulders. As he reached for a tile, he regarded the ring, then looked over at Q. “I’m thinking of taking it off,” he admitted, twisting the ring on his finger.

Q set down the vibrant blue tile in his hand, then reached out to take Eliot’s hand in his. He ran his finger over the ring. “You could. But… it suits you. It looks good.” He put his hand next to Eliot’s, with his ring from Arielle on it. “These are remains of things we still need to remember.”

He could see the shake in Q’s hand, the flash of pain. They’d eventually go back home, somehow, and Eliot would see Fen again. He didn’t love her how Q loved Arielle, but Fen remained a friend, one of the things he needed to remember.

What if they went back old? What if they didn’t remember what happened here, and Arielle would be lost to the tricky shit that was time magic? And Teddy?

Eliot felt his chest tighten. They’d have to remember everything they could while they could. He put his left hand over Q’s left hand. “So you’re saying I should keep the ring on because it looks good on my hand?”

Q smiled, that small smile that seemed so little but said so much. “Everything looks good on you,” he murmured, leaning into kiss Eliot. His beard tickled Eliot’s face and he’d never been more grateful for a series of moments strung together into a whole.

Much like all of the tiles in the mosaic. This was a beautiful life.

Eliot blinked, looking up at Charlton who waited patiently across the table from him for an answer.

“Are you alright?” Charlton asked, his voice gentle. “I didn’t mean to pry, if you don’t want to talk about it-“

“It was because of Quentin,” Eliot blurted, trying to hold back the sense of loss that came with thinking about it. “When we were in the other timeline, I was going to take the ring off.” He put his hand flat on the table and in his mind he could see his hand becoming older, wrinkled, frail, while the ring stayed the same. “Q said…” Eliot chuckled softly. “Q said it looks good on my hand. That it suited me. Leave it to him to talk me into it that fucking easily.” He ran his other hand over the ring, feeling it’s surface. “We both left our rings there, his from Arielle, mine from Fen. Our reminders to the complications of our lives, and reminders that we were now living a simple life, with just the two of us.”

Charlton took a deep breath. “Arielle. Is that the woman Quentin married?”

Eliot took a drink of his coffee. “I thought you didn’t remember those parts.”

“I remember little bits.” Charlton regarded him across the table. “I remember she was important to you, too.”

“They were my family,” he said simply, closing his eyes. “All of them.”

Eliot felt Charlton’s hand rest on his. His hand felt cool from holding the glass of milk, but comforting. “I know it’s hard but any time you want to talk about them, I’m willing to listen.”

Eliot nodded and opened his eyes. “You know me, I never want to talk about anything.”

“I know. But the offer is open.” Charlton pulled his hand back. “But I’m going to ask you to make one promise.”

“Not the pressure,” Eliot muttered. “It was bad enough when you were in my head.”

“I’ll try to not be offended.” Charlton, to his credit, didn’t look offended. “The first chance you get, tell Margo. She loves you, and she wants to be there for you. Let her.”

Eliot swallowed. “What if I don’t see her again?”

“Do you think you, Margo, or any of the others would let that happen?”

He hated when Charlton was right. Or maybe, he appreciated that Charlton wasn’t afraid to say these things. “No.” He took a drink of his coffee. “Besides, you haven’t even seen a real party here yet.”

Charlton smiled, and they switched the topic of conversation to be about how teaching was going. There was only so much emotion Eliot could take for a day, but he felt a weight lifted off of him, a small relief in sharing a small enough piece to acknowledge it had been real, but small enough that it was still his. Q, Arielle, Teddy... they’d always be his. A part of him that not having felt like someone carved his heart out, but a part he couldn’t ever forget. That kind of love never went away. 

By the time he saw Margo again, he hoped he’d be ready to tell her everything. If nothing else, there was no way Charlton would let him forget anything. His promises, his friends, himself.

Maybe learning to open up a little wasn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> I was trying to work out why Eliot still wore the ring and I kept coming back to something like this being the reason.


End file.
